What does everyone think of barrel lapping. I bought some j-b cleaning compound and i did try it on one rifle. If I get time I will shoot it today. And see if it did anything.
I have had some excellent results using the final finish bullets from David Tubb. I recently fixed a Sauer 300 Win Mag and have also had good luck on old K98 Mausers.
I have done a few rifles with a Wheeler kit. Made one them into a 1/4 moa shooter . . . . . at 500 yards, turned the .243 into a "one ragged hole" shooter at 100.
Yeah, it works, not always, but most of the time.
RJ
I think when one has a rough barrel right from the factory, or a newly "cut-rifling" barrel, abrasives can smooth the bore. I don't understand how this helps precision, but it seems to.
Paul
It knocks off the high spot and smoothes out the rest creating less places for fouling to hang up on/in. Made a world of difference in the 300RUM.
Unless you want to waste the time 'n money to put 3-400 rounds down the bore doing what you can do with maybe 20 with a lapping kit.
I wasn't a believer either until my old pal Walt says "Here kid try this, it'll work if you do it like this." and he handed me his Wheeler lapping kit.
RJ
Personally not a fan of putting any abrasives down a barrel unless absolutely necessary, that being said I've not had a bad barrel yet!
I can see the utility if needed on cut rifled barrels, not so obvious for button or hammer forged tubes.
Gunsmiths love people polishing the :cens: out of barrels - shortens the useful life of the tube....
Barry Tubbs was a fan of lapping barrels (Tubbs bore cleaning products) but then he was a PTOOEY Bench Rest shooter and had more corporate sponsors than Dale Earnhart Jr. so a barrel was peanuts to him.
The last two barrels I've done, I didn't "follow" the directions and only did the last two grits (400 and 800 I think)The 300RUM I did the whole nine yards, but again spent more "time" with the finest grit paste.
RJ
Reminds me of an article in G & A some years ago by Ross Seyfried.
He had for some years religiously "conditioned" his rifle barrels, but decided to do a comparison test on conditioned & non conditioned barrels.
So he got hold of several pairs of identical rifles. One of each pair he conditioned the bore as he'd always done. Cant remember his method exactly, but I dont think he used any lapping compound, or any "off the shelf" kit.
Think his method was, to fire one round, clean the bore, fire 2 rounds, clean the bore, fire 3 rounds etc, etc. Not sure how many rounds this went on for.
Anyway, at the end of this he accuracy tested each pair of rifle, & found no appreciable difference. Other than the norm of some rifles preferring different ammo to others. Some conditioned barrels shot slightly better, but some didn't.
His conclusion was that he'd been wasting his time & ammo for some years.
I've never put much stock in lapping barrels. A good cleaning before shooting a new gun is all I ever did. I just tried to find the most accurate load & be done with it. Most new barrels shoot pretty good as is. .....Paul H
The .50 cal (actually 0.510") that I had cut-rifled for the .50 Alaskan has an atrociously rough barrel! 5 rounds of "lead" bullets left TEN GRAINS of lead in the bore! I haven't lapped it, but I'm gonna!
Paul